Gun Violence vs Democracy
California Ranked #1 for Gun Safety, Death Rate 37% Lower than National Average
In 2021, California was ranked as the #1 state for population and gun safety by Giffords Law Center, and the state saw a 37% lower gun death rate than the national average. According to the CDC, California’s gun death rate was the 44th lowest in the nation, with 8.5 gun deaths per 100,000 people – compared to 13.7 deaths per 100,000 nationally, 28.6 in Mississippi, 20.7 in Oklahoma, and 14.2 in Texas. California’s gun death rate for children is also lower than other states. It is 58% lower than the national average.
And yet in the course of just eight days, at least 25 people were killed in four separate mass shootings, defined as any shooting in which at least four people are injured. Can we ever be safe?
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I resurrected this commentary by Annie, as taken from her blog “annieasksyou‘.” Written on November 25 and fitting to the insanity occurring in our nation today.
“Gun Violence vs Democracy,” annieasksyou…
Seeking Dialogue to Inform, Enlighten, and/or Amuse You and Me
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“Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” are incompatible with a craven Supreme Court majority’s opening the doors to madness in 2008 by ruling in the Heller decision that the Second Amendment applies to individual gun ownership—in people’s homes. Many legal scholars question that interpretation of the Second Amendment, which ignores the reference to a “well-regulated militia.”
It’s been all down hill from there.
Today, if there were a Guinness Book of Shameful World Records, the US would be on top. We have more guns than men, women, children, and babies in this country. We are teetering between horror and numbness as mass shootings with weapons of war devastate one community after another. There seem to be few gathering places where “the unthinkable” is no longer unthinkable.
A reporter who was in Georgia to cover the latest murderous attack—in a Walmart—noted a general unease around him. Georgia, you see, is an open carry state, allowing people to purchase and carry a firearm without a permit or license.
So in the midst of the shock and horror of confronting this pre-Thanksgiving carnage, plenty of people were calmly walking around with their weapons in plain sight. The reporter, for one, found the sight of so many nonchalantly armed pedestrians quite disarming.
There are twenty-six open carry states at this point.
How did we reach this intolerable situation? The convoluted story’s beyond my summation in a blog post. But at the core are the gun manufacturers—draping themselves in patriotism–fronted by a willing National Rifle Association that has become more radical over the years, buying elected officials decade after decade.
The NRA has fallen into hard times. With their leader disgraced by revelations of his high living and poor marksmanship in trying to make an elephant into a trophy, the lobbyists filed for bankruptcy, then relocated to Texas after a New York judge said that filing was in bad faith.
But last year, they were still able to prevent President Biden from installing his Senate-confirmed nominee as head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). They vastly outspend all the gun safety organizations in lobbying and elections.
The NRA is “aided and abetted by an interlocking array of groups with lower national profiles,” according to The Daily Beast. The article described the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), which, with dreadful irony, has its headquarters two miles from the Sandy Hook school where first graders were massacred in 2012.
Before the November election, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), one of the foremost gun safety advocates in the Senate (who was a Congressman representing Newtown when the shooting occurred) warned that gun safety legislation was one of the critical issues on the ballot.
He was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough Republican Senators to push through the kind of meaningful legislation that was promised following the modest compromise law that was hailed as great progress in June of this year.
We accomplished a great deal in this midterm election, and democracy and abortion were very much on the minds of voters who turned back some scary trends. I don’t wish to sound flippant, but guns have so permeated our culture that our language reeks of them: just weeks ago, our democracy dodged a bullet.
In good measure, credit for that result goes to Generation Z voters, who are animated by reproductive rights and voting rights. Yet these young people are the generation whose school years have been marred by active shooter drills. Studies have been documenting the trauma these drills themselves create. Not surprisingly, sensible gun safety legislation is one of Gen Z’s core issues as well.
For such legislation, they—and we—will probably have to wait. Among the odious leaders of the incoming House of Representatives, we find the depravity of campaign photos and Christmas cards showing parents and their young children armed with long guns.
We’ve already seen the People’s House defiled by Kyle Rittenhouse, the young killer who was an invited guest and considers himself a Representative-to-be. Ashli Babbitt, the young woman insurrectionist who was shot and killed as she tried to storm the Capitol, is lionized, and there are plans to go after the government official who shot her while doing his job protecting the Capitol, its occupants, and the peaceful transfer of power.
Yet none of this is what the majority of Americans want. A Pew Research poll conducted after President Biden signed this year’s legislation found 64% approval of the law, with 32% expressing strong approval. Only 21% said they disapproved of the law; 11% strongly disapproved. (Fifteen percent weren’t sure.)
Notably, most Americans in this poll felt there was a need for more legislation, expressing concern the new law wasn’t enough to reduce gun violence.
“About six-in-ten Americans (63%) would like to see Congress pass additional legislation to address gun violence, although there are deep partisan divides on this issue. Roughly nine-in-ten Democrats (89%) say they would like to see another round of legislation, while just 32% of Republicans say the same.”
I think we must put that “deep partisan divide” into perspective. The poll found strong support among all racial demographic groups, with Asian Americans, the fastest growing demographic, at 75%. And we know from this election that pollsters have been over-representing Republicans in their samplings, while the numbers of Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents outnumber them in the electorate. Without gerrymandering and voter suppression, I see reason to conjecture that Americans are less divided on this issue than that poll suggests.
There are two issues that gun safety advocates believe could make a big difference: expanded background checks and a ban on assault weapons. According to an NPR report, polls show that 90% of Americans support expanded background checks. A Public Policy Polling survey found that 83% of gun owners support them, including 72% of NRA members.
Everytown for Gun Safety cites an article in The Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery that concluded:
“Researchers estimate that if we still had a federal Assault Weapon Ban, we’d see 70 percent fewer mass shooting deaths.”
Following the horrific Uvalde shooting, when armed law enforcement officers stood outside while children begged for help and their small bodies were later found decimated by firepower, I was struck by the request from Texas officials that all parents should routinely provide a DNA sample of their children for identification purposes.
If that doesn’t move people to insist that their legislators enact a ban on these weapons, I don’t know what would.
What is the law enforcement community’s position on this issue? The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) issued a Firearms Policy Position Statement in 2018 outlining what it called “common sense policies that would assist in reducing gun violence, while upholding the second amendment.”
This document appears to me to be completely aligned with the goals of sensible gun safety legislation that has received legislative consideration, though rarely action.
Here’s what the IACP says about Semi-Automatic Assault Weapons:
Criminal Use of Semi-Automatic Assault Weapons
“First passed in 1994, the assault weapons ban required domestic gun manufacturers to stop
production of semi-automatic assault weapons and ammunition magazines holding more than ten rounds except for military or police use. While the ban was in place, it was remarkably effective in reducing the number of crimes involving assault weapons. In the period of the ban, (1994-2004) the proportion of assault weapons traced to crimes fell by a dramatic 66 percent.
“Semi-Automatic assault weapons are routinely the weapons of choice for gang members and drug dealers. They are regularly encountered in drug busts and are all too often used against police officers.
“The IACP has been a strong supporter of the assault weapons ban since 1992, and our membership has approved several reauthorizations of support in the years since. The membership took this action because we, as law enforcement executives, understand that the criminal use of semiautomatic assault weapons pose a grave risk to our officers and the communities they are sworn to protect.”
Chris Brown, President of the Brady Campaign, has said that expanded background checks and an assault weapons ban could be passed during this lame duck session of Congress. If they aren’t, we can foresee the rising toll of death and grievous injuries in the next two years of inaction at best, or even further shredding of our gun safety laws.
President Biden said on Thanksgiving that he is counting the votes for a federal assault weapons ban because
“the idea we still allow semiautomatic weapons to be purchased is sick…It has no social redeeming value, zero, none. Not a single, solitary rationale for it.”
I know this lame duck session has a crowded calendar, including important bills regarding the Debt Ceiling and the Electoral Count Act. Nevertheless, on Monday, I plan to call my member of Congress and two Senators to urge them to do their best to pass the following pieces of legislation before this session ends: further funding for Ukraine; additional funds for Covid to replace the government’s dwindling resources; and passage of expanded background checks and an assault weapons ban.
All three are life and death issues. If enough of us exercise our democratic rights now, can we make a difference?
We won’t know if we don’t try.
Annie
As I have asserted many times, ‘Gun rights’ as enshrined in the 2nd Amendment are a curse on the US that we all must bear, at least as long as the Supreme Court is dominated by right-wing Justices. Probably even after that changes. And any time that ‘conservative’ dominance were to reappear, gun rights will do so also.
What this is, really, is a reflection on an attitude expressed by the Founders that free will is ALL IMPORTANT in the national psyche. That’s what freedom is all about.
Related? Ultimately YOU are responsible for your own well-being, including paying for your own healthcare (although some assistance has been snuck in for that.)
And even if states think they can & must do something about this problem, in the end they can’t do enough. In part due to Supreme Court intransigence, but also because neighboring states can take advantage of lax gun laws & open borders.
Not to mention local authorities tacitly supporting gun-ownership regardless of state laws restricting such, which seems to be true in rural Massachusetts, that also abuts Vermont which has one of the laxest gun laws in the US and New Hampshire, freedom-loving & proud of it.
So, exercise your free will as an American and traipse over to your neighboring state and flaunt your own state’s restrictive gun ownership regulations, if that suits yer fancy, whydoncha.
Bearing in mind that if you do so, you will very likely be violating your own state’s laws about possessing unregistered firearms, and be subject to hefty fines & imprisonment.
Even Social Security was snuck in.
Paid for by the citizenry, to a large extent, financed by FICA, which is the tax which is not a tax (per Coberly) over GOP objections back in 1935, because the guv’mint is not authorized to collect money which is not a tax FICA was deemed a tax. I do not have a problem this (it is just semantics, of the worst kind probably.)
The Social Security Act of 1935
Eric’s Commentary resisting gun control (AB Moderator)
I lived many years in Spain. Gun violence was very low, as gun ownership was next to impossible. Even hunting in Spain is overwhelming shotgun and even these guns were stored (mostly -some exceptions) at hunt club facilities. I think American gun owners intuit that confiscation has to be the legal endgame if the metric is gun violence.
Note how the recently enacted reforms are already being referred to as “modest”. Well, it is modest, so that’s not wrong. If gun owners do not want to get to confiscation, it makes sense to dig in right now.
For example, why resist background checks? Well, who says that those checks won’t quickly become minutely examining the buyer’s past to squeeze the buyer into some kind of “red flag” situation?
Will there be a compromise of better background checks but dumping red flag approaches?
It reminds me a little of the 87,000 IRS agent narrative where the President announces that there won’t be more audits below $400,000. Then the Treasury Secretary “clarifies” that there will be a lot more audits, just not proportionally more. So you have the “common sense reforms” talk, but right behind you can see the elimination private gun ownership is what is the end goal.
Eric,
Background checks and red flag laws do not infringe on my right to possess a firearm. As far as confiscation of firearms, then that should only be for semiautomatic weapons that have been taken out of the home. Personally, I would not care if illegal weapons were confiscated from homes, but that is an unrealistic goal as it crosses the unreasonable 4th Amendment search and seizure lines which are held more sacrosanct than the second amendment. I would be fine with loosening probable cause a bit too.
It would not infringe upon my right to bear arms if semiautomatic weapons were made illegal for private possession and use, just the same as full automatic weapons have long been. My dad had a semiautomatic rife and 12-gauge when I was a kid, but replaced them with a Marlin lever action and Remington pump, respectively, after they each jammed just once. I have never owned any myself and only fired them when I was about six years old and then later when in the Army.
Semi-automatic weapons are good for wars of attrition in close up urban and jungle warfare, although in Vietnam there was a preference for 12-gauge pumps with unplugged magazines by most guys walking point. The Army did not provide shotguns, so they were acquired from home. Manual load high-powered rifles do not waste energy ejecting and chambering the next round and make superior sniper rifles for counter-insurgency actions.
Also, semi-automatic weapons are for cops, military, and candy-assessed rednecks and, unfortunately, there are far too many of the latter. I clearly remember my reaction to Charlton Heston’s “pry it from my cold, dead hand” was “OK, have it your way.” Until then he had been among my favorite actors, but afterwards his image made a better shooting target.
Personally, I don’t see what adding more IRS agents to do audits (or just staff to answer the phones) has anything to do with firearms confiscation, as that would be an ATF activity. But there is the rub: how would the ATF go about confiscating all that weaponry
Fred,
From the standpoint of preserving democracy, then it would go a long ways towards that end if gun control ended the display of assault weapons at public events in open carry states. The massively overwhelming turnout of blacks at the Richmond VA Unite the Right Rally (just a few months after Charlottesville) sent them packing out of town with a police escort for their own protection, but they probably would never have even shown their faces here with our open carry laws and no prohibition on assault weapons. I prefer open carry to concealed carry, but still do not want to see any assault weapons in privates hands under any conditions or any privately held semiautomatic weapons at all for that matter.
geoff’s commentary on why there should be gun control (AB Moderator)
this is a from a journal entry I wrote last summer:
Headline today. Another mass shooting. This one at a 4th of July parade in Chicago, leaving six dead and two dozen hospitalized. This is happening so frequently in the U.S that it almost doesn’t qualify as news anymore. One study that looked at developed and developing countries between 1998 and 2019 found that the U.S. accounted for 73% of incidents and 62% of fatalities among all developed nations. These are not statistics we can take pride in. Harvard’s Injury Control Research Center says the U.S. is about average for overall violence and crime, but is unique in that we give our (violent) people “incredibly easy access to guns”. Congress just made that access slightly more difficult, but with around 375 million guns already broadly distributed among U.S. households we cannot expect much improvement as a result of a quite modest legal adjustment.
Only three countries in the world have a constitutional right to bear arms, the U.S. Mexico and Guatemala. All three suffer from epidemic gun violence.
The founders thought we needed a right to bear arms so we could establish a system of well regulated militias as a defense against the standing armies that were then common in Europe. Today we rather famously have a well unded, well equipped standing army, even including a newly established space force. As far as I am aware, there are currently no well regulated space militias. While the regulated militias here on planet earth are almost entirely maintained by federal and state governments, and are deployed exclusively at their controlling governments’ bidding. They function largely as an extension of a standing army.
There are citizen organized militias, 200 or more according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. They see themselves as patriots honoring the Founders’ intent behind the Second Amendment. Of course they would be hoplessly overmatched by government armed forces. I imagine that these citizen militias keep their weapons safe and in good repair. However the vast majority of our huge private arsenal is in the hands of people who have no intention of ever joining a militia, well regulated or not. Too many of these gun owners are not conscientious about the safe and proper use of firearms. We pay a heavy price as a result, tens of thousands of deaths, and over 100,000 non-fatal injuries every year. These are also shameful numbers.
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this is added
The US is today a nation of 350 million people and 375 million guns. Our national security state has unprecedented and growing scope and capability, with no sign of that reversing. In this world it’s hard to imagine our founders would reach the same conclusions about private gun ownership today.
To be clear, I have no desire to pry a gun from anyone’s cold dead hand, and I see no realistic version of a US government that could legalize such a policy, let alone meaningfully enforce it.
On the other hand, I would love to see laws that would require repsonsible gun ownership – universal backround checks, red flag suspensions, annual registration, training, periodic licensing, and an insurance premium that offsets the social costs of owning a firearm. Rights should come with responsibilities.
We’ve implemented some of this in California and we know it works. We’ve literally documented instances where mass shootings were prevented just by complicating access to guns.
Alternatively, we could turn every school yard, work place, and public square into armed fortresses. But in what sense would that be a free country? Of course there’s always the “thought and prayers” thing.
geoff:
You get the tenor of the issue at hand. When does it all end and when is enough, enough.
1. We are stuck with this.
2. Lately, something like 60% of us want this changed.
3. The NRA, the GOP, and the Supreme Court do not.
4. Go to step 1.
Fred:
Thank you for the supporting data. I do not think we are as stuck as many believe. Many are being stubborn. They do not want to do as told. By the way, Annie just thanks us for reposting this commentary. Besides your factual comments, we have some excellent commentary.
It is said that a majority of NRA members do want responsible changes of the sort mentioned above (background checks, etc.). But their leadership & the arms manufacturers behind them do not. So the NRA policy is not going to change.
If/when the 60% majority becomes 80%, then maybe something will change.
Most of the views in the comments and article here are crass stupidity. I’m heavily pro-2nd Amendment and against gun registration of any kind. I’m for abolishing the background checks since they are always used against law abiding gun owners that are not the problem. I’m for abolishing the ATF and executing or at a minimum jailing ATF agents that have violated the civil rights of Americans when it comes to gun ownership.
If you want to fix the misnamed ‘gun violence,’ then remove minorities like blacks and browns from owning firearms. It’s that simple. Notice that the cowardly ATF or FBI will never go into a black inner city ghetto neighborhood and round up the criminals causing the problems.
Also, what about knife violence? Why are knives not permitted or banned?
It’s a shame more high schools and colleges do not have shooting clubs. Those who do not support the 2nd Amendment are kind of people I do not want in my community or my country. You are not worthy of being an American citizen.
Mr. Texan;
This XMarine Sergeant disagrees with your analysis of the problem.
Which is . . . Too many bullet-spewing-weapons are in the hands of people who do not have the maturity, mentality, and intelligence to be in the same room as something exhibiting such destructive and life taking power. Oh, I agree we should not have the numbers of ATF, FBI, and law enforcement personnel on the streets only because it is a large and growing waste of resource and funds. Resource and funds which could be spent on free education, improved infrastructure, healthcare, housing, etc. for “all.”
Unfortunately, the need for law enforcement is there because some believe they are Watt Earp and can handle the situation. They (you) can’t and neither can the growing numbers of law enforcement officers. So what is the alternative? Your fortress “My Freedoms” make believe right or minimizing the numbers of weapons, their ammo, etc.
Knives, shooting clubs, ATF, FBI are not in this commentary. Your including of such is a non sequitur. So lose it. Terminology such as blacks and browns (in the manner that you use it) will not be allowed here. It is racist. I served, worked, and lived amongst many of people of color globally. Thier blood is the same color and they bleed just like I do. They helped me when I needed help.
The problem being the misuse of bullet-spewing-weapons, much of it due to the availability of them, and the misinterpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia:
“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment right is not unlimited…. [It is] not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Antonin Scalia District of Columbia v. Heller. Scalia goes on;
The purpose of the right, Scalia wrote, is for the protection of the home but “of course the right was not unlimited,” and it does not “protect the right of citizens to carry arms for any sort of confrontation.”
Unfortunately, Justice Scalia is not around to explain Heller to you. In his SCOTUS decision, he said communities can ban assault style weapons. Some communities have already banned such weapons. The 2nd Amendment still has been largely misinterpreted.
A Texan,
WTF are you so afraid of? You make gun owners sound like a big bunch of wusses.
Over the last forty years 73% of mass shootings were committed by candy-ass white boy. (I will post link in separate comment because AB has a screwy trash policy on postings.) Sure black kids murder more black kids by far than the mass shooting body county, but then my family is white and all my children and grandchildren and great grandchildren are white and none of them go into ghettos to buy drugs. So, black kids killing other black kids in drug turf wars is not a threat to my family. Mass shooters target mostly ordinary working folk and sometimes even elites (which should be a lesser crime:<) ). I want to protect churches, schools, ordinary people out on the town or at gatherings regardless of their gender, ethnicity, race, or religion, but drug dealing scum – not so much. Kids that kill other kids with guns or even fentanyl have it coming, but school kids other than one six year old recently in Norfolk VA do not. Just because I want to protect the innocent, that does not mean that I am non-violent. If I were non-violent, then I would have become a Quaker and maybe have dodged the draft.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/476456/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-shooter-s-race/
Number of mass shootings in the United States between 1982 and January 2023, by shooter’s race or ethnicity
Between 1982 and January 2023, 73 out of the 139 mass shootings in the United States 73 were carried out by white shooters. By comparison, the perpetrator was African American in 24 mass shootings, and Latino in 11. When calculated as percentages, this amounts to 53 percent, 17 percent, and eight percent respectively.
Sorry, my mistake. That was 73 mass shootings, which is only 53% were white.
Ron:
This is a guest post for which I have the permission to post. Be careful with some of the words. Don’t be misunderstood. Please . . .
Run,
Sure, sorry. My emotions have been running a bit hotter than usual of late.
Ron;
Some will take exception to our remarks. I what people to be comfortable with us that we are respectful. Thank you.
Hear hear. This USArmy electronics instructor (but fully trained yet untested combat infantryman) agrees fully. I was robbed by a couple of AA army-garbed individuals on Ft Meade many, many years ago, bearing what may have been a replica revolver but who’s going to question that. No shots fired, no harm done, right after payday. They were just exercising their constitutional rights.
After all, the Constitution implies being ‘innocent until proven guilty’ pretty much means that (because of the notion of free will) that you are within your rights to commit any crime you wish. Not specifically stated therein, but implied by the 5th, 6th & 14th Amendments, it is said.
If you are ‘innocent until proven guilty’, you are not committing a crime, as such, until found guilty in a court of law. Thus exercising free will.